The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-05-13

braiui my brsinr'
Oh, stand or from that! Why will
you 60 sounding your way amid the reefs
and warning buoys, whsn there IL such
vast ocean in which you may voyage, all
sail seti
There IL one othor thing shall say this
morning before leave you, whether you
want TO hear IL or not That IL, that con.
slider the lascivious rhetorical literature
OF the day as most tremendous for ruin.
There Is no one who can like good pict-
ures better than do. The quickest and
most condensed way Of inpressing the
public mind Is BY pictures. What the
painter does by his brush for few favor.
| ties the engraver does by his knife for the
| million. What the author accomplishes
bv fifty pages the artist does by fash.
The best part Of . painting that costs So.
600 you may buy for ten cents. Fine
paintings belong to the aristocracy Of art
Engravings belong to the democracy Of
| art. You do well to gather coed pictures
in you homes. Spread them before your
| children after. the tea hour is past
| and the evening circle Is gathered.
Throw them on the invalid's couch.
Strew them through the rail train to
cheer the traveller on his journey. Tack
them on the wall Of the nursery. Gather
| them in albums and portfolios. God
| speed the good pictures on their way
| with ministries Of knowledge and mercy.
But what shall l say Of the prostitution
Of this art to purposes Of iniq uity! These
death-warrants Of the soul arc at every
street corner. They smite the vision Of
the young man with pollution. Many q
young man buying copy has bought his
eternal discontinue. There may be
enough poison in one bad picture to pos-
on one soul, and that soul may poison ten,
and ten fifty, and the fifty hundreds,
and the hundreds thousands. until
| nothing but the measuring line Of eterni-
ty can tell the height, and depth and
| ghas illness, and horror of the great un.
doing. The work Of death that the wick
ed author does in q whole book the bad
| engraver may do on o half side of picto-
! riaL
Under the guisc of pure mirth the young
man buys one Of these sheets. He unrolls
| it before his comrades amid roars of
| laughter but long after the paper is gone
the result may perhaps be seen in the
blasted imaglnations of those who saw it.
i The Queen of Death holds a banquet every
night, and these periodicals are the
that the fair brow of American art should
be blotched with this plague spot, and
| that philanthropists, bothering them
selves about smaller evils, should lift up
| no united and vehement voice against this
great calamity.
| Young man, buy not this moral strych-
nine for your soul. Pick not up this nest
of coiled adders for your pocket. Patron
ize no newsstand that keeps them. Have
your room bright with good engravings,
but for these outrageous pictorials have
not one wall, not one bureau, not one
pocket. A man is no better than the pict.
ure he loves to look at. If your eyes arc
not pure, your heart can not be. At a
| newsstand one can guess the character Of
| a man by the kind of pictorial he pur-
chases. When the devil fails to get a man
| to read a bad book, he sometimes succeeds
| in getting hi m to look at a bad picture.
When Satan goes a-fishing he does not
| care whether it is a long line or a short
line, if he o:ly draws his victim in. Be-
| ware of lascivious pictorials. young m IN,
| in the name of Almighty God l charge
you.
If have this morning successfully laid
down any principles by which you may
! judge in regard to books and new spapers.
| then l have done something which shall
| not be ashamed of on the day which shall
try every mans work, Of what sort it is.
Cherish good books and newspapers.
Beware of the bad ones. The column
may save your soul: one paragraph may
| ruin it. Benjamin FrankliA said that the
| reading of Cotton Mather's essay on "Do-
| ing Good'' nodded his entire life. The
assassin Of Lord Russell declared that he
| was led into crime by reading one vivid
romance. The consecrated John Angel
James. than whom England never pro.
duced better man, declared in his
old days that he had never yet got over
the evil effects Of having for fifteen min.
utes once read bad book. But l need
! not go so far off. could come near home
| and tell you Of something that occurred in
my college days. l could tell you Of
comrade that was grcat-hear,ed, noble
| and generous. He was studying for an
honorable profession, but he had an in.
| fidel book in his trunk, and he said to me
one day:
"De Witt, would you like to read itr'
Isaid: "Yes, l would" / took tho
book and read it only for few minutes.
I was really startled with whas saw
there, and handed the book back to him
and said:
'You had better destroy that book"
No, he kept it. He read it. He re-read
1t. After awhile he gave up religion as
myth. He gave up God as a nonenity.
He gave up the Bible as fable. He gave
up the Church of Christ as a useless in.
stitution. He gave up good morals as be-
ing unnecessarily stringent. Ihave heard
of him but twice in many years. The
time before the last heard of HIM he was
a confirmed incbriate. TIE last heard
Of him he was coming out of an insane
asylum-in body. mind and soul an awful
wreck. l believe that one infidcl book
killed him for two worlds.
Go home to-day and look through your
library, and then, having looked through
your library, look on the stand whero you
keep your EDITORIALS and newspapers, and
apply the Christian principles have laid
down this morning. II there is any thing
in your HON, that can not stand the test,
do not give it away, for it might spoil an
immortal soul: do not sell ii, for
the money you get would be the
price Of blood; but rather kindle
fire on your kitchen hearth, or in yorr
back yard, and then drop the poison in it.
and keep stirring the blanc until from
preface to appendix there shall not be a
single paragraph left, and the bonfire in
Boooklyn shall be as consuming as that
one in the streets Of Ephesus.
sAvense Not Yourselves.~
An Eastern story tells Of the naughty
favoiite Of an Oriental monarch who, as he
wae nassipC threw a atnn0 Mt n moor der.